August 11th

Preparations began aboard the International Space Station Monday for September's scheduled arrival of the new Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle, or HTV. Expedition 20 flight engineers Mike Barratt and Frank De Winne took part in computer-based training for the HTV's rendezvous with the orbital outpost. The HTV is slated to launch from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA's) launch site at Tanegashima Island, Japan on Sept. 10 for an automated rendezvous with the station. Canadarm2 will be used to grapple the craft and berth it to the nadir, or Earth-facing, port of the Harmony module for a month's stay.

August 10th

Topics in this report:
1. Upcoming School Contacts
2. Michael Barratt Participated in ARISS Contact with United Space School
3. Astronaut Training Status
4. SSTV Images Received by Ground Stations

1. Upcoming School Contacts
Ottawa South United Sports Club in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada has been scheduled for an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact on Tuesday, August 11 at 14:26 UTC via telebridge station W6SRJ in California.

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for Euro Space Center, Night of Stars in Transinne, Belgium on Thursday, August 13 at 20:05 UTC via telebridge station W6SRJ in California.

August 8th

An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at Ottawa South United Sports Club, Ottawa, ON, Canada on 11 August. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 14:20 UTC.

The duration of the contact is approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds. The contact will be a telebridge between NA1SS and W6SRJ. The contact should be audible over the west coast of the U.S. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The contact is expected to be conducted in English.

Ottawa South United (OSU) is a soccer club based in Canada's capital, Ottawa. With some 6300 members, it is the largest as well as one of the most successful soccer clubs in Ottawa and the Province of Ontario. OSU was created in January 2003 through the merger of the historic clubs of South Nepean United (SNU) and Osgoode Rideau Soccer Association (ORSA).

August 6th

The videos of the presentations at this year's successful AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium in Guildford are now available to watch on the British Amateur Television Club (BATC) website
Among the fascinating video presentations are:

August 5th

Robotics training and unloading cargo were the order of the day Tuesday for the Expedition 20 crew of the International Space Station.

Flight engineers Mike Barratt and Frank De Winne worked in the Kibo module with a training simulator to practice using the space station's robotic arm. On Friday, the crew will use Canadarm2 to grapple and unberth Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 from the nadir port on Unity node and relocate it to the port common berthing mechanism. This move is a step in preparation for next year's installation of the new Tranquility Node 3 and the Cupola to be delivered by the STS-130 space shuttle crew.

August 4th

An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at United Space School, Seabrook, Texas on 5 August. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 13:52 UTC.
The duration of the contact is approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds. The contact will be a telebridge between NA1SS and ON4ISS. The contact should be audible over parts of eastern Europe. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The contact is expected to be conducted in English.

United Space School is a two-week program arranged by the Foundation for International Space Education. This summer, 31 students between the ages of 16 and 18, from 15 countries, are working in teams to design a human mission to Mars. The teams are: Yellow (Mission Control on the Moon); Red (Getting to Mars and back); Green (Living on Mars); Blue (Working on Mars). All students are hosted by Clear Lake area families. The students will tour the Johnson Space Center and attend lectures by astronauts, scientists and engineers.

August 3rd

Aboard the orbiting International Space Station, the Expedition 20 crew began its week Monday by unloading the ISS Progress 34 resupply ship and performing station maintenance after successfully completing a repair to the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) late last week.

The CDRA stopped working Wednesday night. The problem occurred when it was shut down to reconfigure it from a special configuration setup for the shuttle mission. Efforts to turn the system back on failed. Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Robert Thirsk worked Thursday and Friday to replace a heater controller and to isolate a heater element that was found to have a short in it. Late Friday night, the CDRA was reactivated and the maintenance work had done the trick, restoring full operation to the CO2 removal system in the U.S. segment. It continues to operate without issue.

1. Upcoming School Contact
An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for United Space School in Seabrook, Texas on Wednesday, August 5 at 13:47 UTC via telebridge station ON4ISS. The school is a once a year session of high school students that meets annually in the NASA/Clear Lake Area. These students come from around the world for a two week session, during which they stay with local host families while being mentored by astronauts, engineers, and scientists to design a mission to Mars as their team project. Class sessions are held at the University of Houston at Clear Lake. The contact will allow students to learn firsthand what the experience of spaceflight is like. They will use this knowledge in putting together their team project presentation, which they will present to the Houston space community at the end of their session.

August 1st

He may be a bit wobbly for a bit, but Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata is feeling fine after returning to Earth for the first time in more than four months to complete his country's first long-duration spaceflight.

"I feel great," Wakata told reporters after landing in Florida aboard NASA's space shuttle Endeavour. "When the hatch opened, I could smell the grass and the ground and I'm glad to be back home."

Wakata and six other astronauts landed at 10:48 a.m. EDT (1448 GMT) Friday when Endeavour touched down at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The shuttle astronauts wrapped up a long, 16-day mission to the International Space Station, but Wakata returned home after living in weightlessness for 138 days.

A set of high-tech Japanese underwear has passed the ultimate smell test in space.

Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata put the new underwear, which is designed to keep foul odors down in space, and other garb to an extra-long endurance test during his 4 1/2-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

"I wore it for about a month and my station crewmembers never complained for that month, so I think the experiment went fine," Wakata told the Associated Press Thursday in a televised interview.

Wakata is returning to Earth on NASA's space shuttle Endeavour, which is due to land Friday after an 11-day stay at the space station. Before leaving the station, Wakata told Japanese dignitaries, students and reporters that he spent two months in all wearing the experimental space clothing designed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.